NVIDIA GeForce MX250 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (Desktop) vs NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030 (Desktop)

NVIDIA GeForce MX250

The Nvidia GeForce MX250 is a dedicated entry-level mobile graphics card for laptops. It is based on the same Pascal GP108 chip as the predecessor, the GeForce MX150 / desktop GeForce GT 1030 but features increased clock speeds. As with the MX150, the MX250 is available in two versions, the normal 25 Watt version (1D13 device ID) and a low power version with 10 Watt TDP (1D25 device ID) and reduced performance (The MX150 with 10W had a 32% lower clock speed). The GDDR5 memory interface now also supports speeds up to 3.5 GHz = 7 GHz effective (up from 3 GHz).

The GP108 chip is manufactured in a 14 nm FinFET process at Samsung (LPP) and offers a number of new features, including support for DisplayPort 1.4 (ready), HDMI 2.0b, HDR and improved H.265 video de- and encoding (PlayReady 3.0). 4K HDR with Netflix however wont run due to the minimum 3 GB graphics memory that is required. Compared to the bigger Pascal chips, the small GP108 does not support Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP) for VR and G-Sync. A full list of improvements and the new Pascal desktop GPUs is available in our dedicated Pascal architecture article.

Thanks to the increased core speeds (up to +3% in Boost for the 25 Watt version, and faster memory speeds), the new MX250 should be slightly faster than the older MX150. First benchmarks indicate a 5% increase. Still modern should only run fluent in low settings (see the page of the MX150 for games and benchmarks).

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (Desktop)

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 is a graphics card for desktops and high end laptops (upcoming, see our article for the mobile GTX 1060 for benchmarks and specs). It is based on the Pascal architecture and manufactured in 16 nm FinFET at TSMC. The GPU is be based on the smaller GP106 chip. In laptops it has the codename N17E-G1 and will be the successor to the old GTX 970M (predecessor). The laptop version should be launched in August 2016. The desktop version is already out.

The performance of the 6 GB version is on par with an older GeForce GTX 980 (desktop and laptop). Therefore, 1080p gaming at highest detail is currently the best use case for the card. A comprehensive review of the desktop GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition with 6 GB GDDR5 can be found here. Beware, the upcoming 3 GB desktop variant should feature 128 shader less but clocked slightly higher. Still the performance should be definately slower than the 6 GB version.

NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030 (Desktop)

The Nvidia GeForce GT 1030 (sometime GTX 1030 called) is an entry level dedicated graphics card for desktops. It is based on the GP108 chip using the Pascal architecture in 14nm FinFET. It features three streaming multiprocessors (SMs) and therefore 384 shader cores, 24 texture units and 16 ROPs. The 2 GB GDDR5 memory are connected with two 32 Bit memory controller (48 GBit/s). The shaders are identical to other Pascal cards like the GTX 1050 and therefore also the support for DirectX 12 FL 12_1.

The performance is slightly below the Radeon RX 550 from AMD and therefore only suited for low to medium detail settings of modern games like Battlefield 1.

The TDP of the GT1030 is specified as 30 Watt.